


Let Your Heart Wait And Bleed

by loveinamaltshop



Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy
Genre: Angst, Bittersweet Ending, Blow Jobs, Friends With Benefits, M/M, Pining, Pining Patrick, Semi-Public Sex, Touring, Unrequited Love, Van Days
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-28
Updated: 2018-04-28
Packaged: 2019-04-28 20:37:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14457270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loveinamaltshop/pseuds/loveinamaltshop
Summary: He figures out that they’re perfect for each other, but that’s where it ends.





	Let Your Heart Wait And Bleed

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from Neon Trees' "[Your Surrender](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymVs61jcayg)." Much love to Catherines_Collections or [rhymesofblau on Tumblr](https://rhymesofblau.tumblr.com) for our constant angst back-and-forths <3

There’s a scene that plays like obnoxious Vegas lights, flashing behind his eyelids. It looks a lot like the future. An actual future.

His golden ticket is in the form of this kid, this goddamn talented high school kid, Pete’s convinced, sang the soundtrack of his dreams. This is the kid that’s going to gas up the car straight out of Illinois.

“You’re getting me out of here, baby. You’re it.” Pete can only say.

These are the same words Patrick echoes after one of their first shows. Shitty basement gig, there was more wincing from the crowd than applause but Patrick was fucking perfect. In less than ten minutes after finishing their set, Pete has him pinned to the offensively white tile of the bathroom. Pete isn’t even touching him, Patrick’s just backed up right next to the mirror with his hands on either side of Patrick’s face. Pete is short so it’s kind of laughable that Patrick is even shorter. He doesn’t laugh, and instead, hovers over Patrick.

“I’m it,” Patrick smiles easily, but it’s mocking, more so from the couple of beers Pete snuck him than (hopefully) any personal vendetta he might have. He’s too young for those.

That’s all Patrick is, skin soft everywhere and eyes that might be blue, might be green. Pete’s fingers itch for a pen. Pete hasn’t said anything since he shoved Patrick inside the guest bathroom of the house. Usually this set of actions merits him a “you _creepy fuck”_ from anyone else if he’s lucky. Sometimes there’s an upset boyfriend banging on the door. Patrick just stares, challenging him.

Pete doesn’t even realize there’s a challenge he’d started to begin with, is the thing. He plays the game anyway, hips colliding just right against Patrick’s. Patrick doesn’t protest. “That you are,” he says, a genuine swell of appreciation against his chest.

Patrick looks down at where the fronts of their jeans press against each other, sucking his bottom lip like he knows exactly what he’s doing as his thumbs slot into Pete’s belt loops.

The thing is, Pete knows better. He knows kids are like this, they look at Pete with this veneer of faux cockiness that cracks as soon as Pete’s hands are on them, boys and girls alike. Patrick is too good with his own facade that Pete questions if there’s one to begin with. There’s a roll of his hips that ceases this train of thought and the pad of a fingertip that runs skims above Pete’s skin. Patrick is a tease, but he’s too gentle and careful, even with the minimal alcohol in him.

Patrick is all kinds of sexy under angry fluorescent and it makes it hard for Pete to look away, but the gentle Victorian romance novel caresses are a little boring. Pete’s just being objective. Usually, these kids are all over him, on their knees already or bending over the sink at the time that’s passed.

Patrick is syrupy slow, gentle, as if he wants to coat every inch of Pete with how _sweet_ he is.

Pete’s only half hard but he still grinds impatiently against Patrick, hips with a finesse he’s sure Patrick’s never seen and he’s smug to introduce. He takes in the eyes that brighten. So eager, and too easy. Patrick pushes up against his thigh that slips between them. There’s a thrust of his hips, jerky and awkward and it’s fucking adorable.

He doesn’t kiss Patrick that night, kind of doesn’t want to. He had buried his head against Pete’s shoulder, and the creepy little thing inhaled and gave Pete’s neck little kitten licks, humped Pete’s thigh like a dog in heat. The ticklish swipe of tongue against his neck shouldn’t have been hot (again, _objectively),_ but Pete was way too focused on listening to the the noises coming out of Patrick’s mouth. His moans were deep and rough and vibrated the thick air around them.

Neither of them get off or even come close to because there’s a banging on the door and Joe’s angry shouting of “some people have to piss!” Patrick jumps back, the back of his head colliding with the wall. Pete shouldn’t laugh but he does, and he earns a nasty look from Patrick. There’s panic in Patrick’s eyes, but Pete’s skinny frame is already crawling through the tiny window above the tub, which is horrible and painful to do with an erection, so he figures Patrick owes him a milkshake. Or a blowjob, whichever comes first.

“Oh. Hey, it’s just you,” he hears Joe say inside when Pete’s outside in the backyard, rubbing the elbow he fell onto. “Out, man. All that fuckin’ beer. Can’t wait till we get paid in _cash.”_

Pete rolls his back onto the grass, and he can’t find any stars tonight, just clouds on clouds and the shine of streetlights. He can hear the music from the basement’s shitty secondhand sound system and he thinks about Patrick.

Golden ticket Patrick. Golden Patrick. Kind of fucking everything that’s getting him out and his one shot Patrick. Pete’s drunk on Patrick.

He hears shoes rustle against the grass and he closes his eyes.

“You good, man?” an unfamiliar voice asks.

Pete doesn’t turn to look and waves a dismissive hand instead.

* * *

Patrick’s watching him during their next rehearsal. These eyes are intent, but careful. Bird watcher comes to Pete’s mind. It makes him fuck up the next chord but given how tired-looking everyone is that day, no one calls him out. The dictionary image of the word perfectionist, otherwise known as Patrick Stump, doesn’t even flinch. What the actual fuck.

“That was almost good, guys!” Joe chirps. It’s not sarcastic, just pure enthusiasm. Pete is worried about his standards.

God, half the band was so out of focus. Pete glares at Andy, who very obviously needed to get his shit together. Andy furrows his eyebrows at him.

 _Get your shit together, man,_ Pete mouths, not projecting at all.

* * *

Pete wants to eat a whole fucking veggie pizza.

He walks up the basement stairs and uses the phone in the living room to have one delivered to Joe’s. He’s in the middle of rattling off the street when a figure moves in the corner of his eye.

“Hey, Pete?”

Pete knows what’s coming.

“Do you want to talk about the other night?” he says low, because Patrick keeps thinking he’s going to break Pete or something. Pete remembers the warmth of fingertips above his waistband. He gets a semi.

Pete turns to look at Patrick, all of Patrick. He looks exactly the same as ever. The late afternoon light shines on one side of him. His sideburns kind of shine with the rest of his hair, that’s too long at the sides.

“Your hair’s too long at the sides,” Pete points out.

“That’s because my mom cuts it for me,” Patrick says, weirdly defensive about this fact.

Pete shrugs. “Didn’t say it was a bad thing.”  

Patrick makes a face before he opens his mouth again. Pete cuts him off.

“You want to split the pizza with me?” is the first thing that tumbles out of his mouth.

“You weren’t intending to share it?” Patrick seem to not be able to stop the laugh that falls out of his mouth “A whole pizza?”

 _I like you best,_ Pete thinks of saying but it wouldn’t feel right. It might be true but it wouldn’t feel right. “You couldn’t make Joe eat a vegetable even if you dipped it in chocolate. And then we have the vegan.”

Patrick wrinkles his nose, hopefully at the idea of chocolate covered vegetables and not at Pete’s stilted demeanor.

“Yeah, sure,” Patrick says, giving him a dopey smile before his voice lowers “Do you want to take it home with me?”

The semi twitches in Pete’s pants. He doesn’t think and nods.

Alright. Hardly the plan but this is fine, too.

Patrick’s pretty bold for someone with two bandmates waiting in the basement. They run through a couple songs when they head down and Patrick stays static with his guitar firmly placed in front of him. Joe stares at him oddly.

Pete says nothing, lets his laughter pass off as post-rehearsal relief.

The doorbell rings and Pete stops Joe to explain the very much vegetable covered pizza that’s arrived for him. Joe wrinkles his nose and mumbles something about Italian sausages.

* * *

Practice is over the second Andy stretches back on one of the beanbags on the floor and falls asleep. Joe shrugs and waves Pete and Patrick goodbye.

They take Patrick’s car, hands still steady and careful as they drive to his house, which is only a neighborhood over from Joe’s. The drive is quiet, save for Pete’s blunt nails scratching at the cardboard pizza box. The sound evidently irritates Patrick, but Pete can see how he’s shoved the hem of his polo shirt over the front of his jeans.

It’s a pretty twilight. Everything’s washed in pink, and slipping into the dark. Patrick parks and Pete can see the baby blue of Mrs. Stumph’s sedan.

“Your mom’s home,” Pete says, because Pete’s very good at pointing out the obvious.

“Must’ve missed that.” Patrick rolls his eyes and the air is similar to the bathroom from last weekend. Suffocating and thick with the smell of the pizza, hot on his lap. It makes Pete restless.

Pete places the pizza on top of the dashboard. He reaches over, stroking Patrick’s thigh. Patrick, the poor little dude, reddens in the face immediately. Pete smiles sweetly at him, earning a scowl in response. That’s no way to respond to someone who was reaching up to press his fingers against the front of Patrick’s jeans, much like Pete was doing.

“Fucking shit,” Patrick murmurs and denim tents against Pete’s hand.

Pete grins a little, watches the bead of sweat that rolls down the back of Patrick’s neck like an invitation. He takes it.

Patrick’s skin vibrates against Pete’s lips when he’s licking over the his throat. The sensation is nice, makes Pete hum back as a reflex. Patrick is fucking everything. He has music inside him, Pete can feel it in the allegro of his pulse, right under his bottom lip.

He rubs over Patrick’s dick, ignoring the stab of the zipper against the side of his palm in favor of counting the tiny pants Patrick’s making. One, two, ragged — that counts as one and a half, three and a gritted-out _Pete._

“Do you want to eat?” Pete mutters as he’s licking a long stripe against the side of Patrick’s neck all the way to the skin behind Patrick’s ear. There’s a dull twitch he feels that he likes.

“What? Are you — is this dirty talk?” Patrick, arousal and confusion flickering in his eyes.

Pete makes a noise. Patrick makes a different one when Pete pops the button of his jeans. “I don’t like cold pizza.”  

“Jesus,” Patrick murmurs, looking up, either because Pete’s stroking his dick over his briefs or he’s just annoyed, the latter being the more familiar of the two “Could you at least try and finish giving me a handjob?”

Pete’s filled with a surge of glee. He sucks at Patrick’s skin before he pulls away. “I thought I was going to blow you?”

“Oh my god,” Patrick says in the voice of someone who doesn’t get a blowjob often.

Pete tries not to grin, remembers that teeth is never good for any part of oral sex. He pulls Patrick’s cock out, and he’s shiny at the head and the flesh is flushed dark against his hand. Patrick’s hands move to his hips and lowers his jeans. Pete catches him making a quick survey to the front of his house.

“We could have done this in my room,” Patrick says hurriedly. Pete doesn’t reply, reasonably enough because his mouth wraps around the head already, tongue swirling over where the slit is. Patrick scrambles for the lever on the side of the seat, letting him recline comfortably.

Pete wants to make him come before the car fogs up.

Patrick’s lowering his pants and underwear, exposing more of himself. Pete moans softly around Patrick’s dick. He wraps a hand around the length of Patrick, stroking him. He feels himself drool over his dick, feeling the rivulets coat his fist and allowing him to stroke faster.

Patrick seems to be enjoying this, given the hand around the back of Pete’s shirt, and the gentle way he’s thrusting up in time with Pete’s strokes. He moans, drawn out and pretty, and okay, if he didn’t before, Pete definitely has a hard on now. God, this kid is too much sometimes.

“You’re so good,” is shaken out of Patrick, and it sounds a little awkward, like he’s trying out the words. Pete wants to tell him he doesn’t have to say anything he doesn’t want to because Pete _knows_ just how moderately okay he is at this. Patrick can keep making noises like that one from earlier, and Pete could die a happy man. Or at least orgasm like a happy man when he’s back in the privacy of his own room.

Pete keeps pumping him, quick and insistent. His wrist kind of hurts after a little bit, and so does his jaw and it’s maybe something to do with Patrick’s fairly bigger than average _and_ he’s out of practice. He keeps going, making sloppy, obscene noises he knows Patrick will eat up. He is absolutely right, from the way he feels Patrick pull the fabric of his shirt and he’s definitely going to stretch the neckline.

He keeps sucking, closing his throat around the tip, groaning around it and lets his spit lubricate the rest of the length, and the car is too hot. Through his closed eyes, there’s the flash of a yellow street lamp turning on that sears right through his eyelids. He has to work fast.

He pulls off, and Patrick whines. He’s compelled to roll his eyes but he strokes Patrick instead, flattening his tongue on the skin where his balls meet his dick. He laps at it hungrily, sloppy noises again, dirty-low _“tell me when you’re going to come”_ against wet satin skin and thumbs over thick pulsing vein on the side of Patrick’s dick.

Patrick fails to tell him but his ball draw up tight and he wraps his mouth around the head of Patrick’s dick again, letting him shoot into Pete’s mouth and down his throat. It’s bitter and hardly Pete’s favorite thing but he swallows.

He pulls away, forgoes the thought of licking the single drop that fell out of his mouth and onto his hand. He wipes it against the car seat.

The windows fogged up, Pete notices when he sits up.

“Do you want me to do something?” Patrick asks softly.

They both look at where Pete’s half hard, and it’s a fairly comical scene. Pete settles for shaking his head. Before Patrick says something that Pete’s sure is probably going to sound like “are you sure,” he grabs either side of Patrick’s head and licks into his mouth. Patrick sputters and pushes Pete away. He wrinkles his nose.

“That’s gross,” Patrick says “I just— you know.”

“You ejaculated. In _me.”_

There’s a delicious shiver from Patrick, who busies himself with lowering his window just a crack. “Don’t say it like that.”

Pete grins. He realizes he’s fucking starving and Patrick tells him he is too. They scarf down the pizza under the lamplight.

They talk about the tour and the van. Pete laughs too hard at the stubborn, stretchy cheese that’s between Patrick’s teeth and the pizza. Patrick laughs when Pete starts snorting.

Pete’s never snorted in front of anyone other than his family so he figures the only solution is to fucking murder Patrick right in front of his childhood home.

He settles with kissing grease-covered lips with his own.

* * *

On tour, they’re an open secret.

It’s perfect for Pete because no one wants to talk about it but they know that a shaky van is to be avoided until further notice. The thing is, it doesn’t happen often. They’re not overtly hedonistic. But having another dick slick with Pete’s mouth against his is not something he can say no to.

Joe teases both of them, but that’s always been a thing. Ever since “sing something for us” and “you’re it” in Patrick’s basement.

It’s Andy looks at them warily sometimes, when Pete’s retracting his hand from Patrick’s back pocket too quickly or when Patrick’s just scrambled out of the van, the label of his shirt sticking out like a neon sign.

Pete knows they care. It’s good that they do. It’s good for Patrick, who’s running on adrenaline and testosterone and jet fuel that smells a lot like Pete’s cheap cologne.

One night in Wisconsin, Pete whispers _I could love you_ when he’s got Patrick pressed up against the side of the van. It doesn’t feel like a lie, and he finds out that’s enough for Patrick when a mouth slides over his.

It’s shaky and Joe sees when he comes back from the convenience store. They know from the footsteps and the slam of the passenger seat.

Patrick’s smile looks a lot like promise. It’s a smile that was never meant for Pete, but Pete is there, stroking over his chin.

Of anyone Pete’s ever had pressed up against him, Patrick feels like the youngest.

There are fireflies in the distance and the van starts against Patrick. Neither of them say anything until they’re inside.

Patrick’s hand bumps against Pete’s knee. His palm faces up. Pete tangles his own fingers between his. Patrick’s eyes are so warm on him.

His belly churns like a warning.

* * *

“Dude,” Joe stage-whispers the next day, tugging at Pete’s shirt sleeve. He wonders if he’s still stoned. “We gotta talk.”

 _And why, pray fucking tell?_ but Pete has half a mind not to sputter this out. Joe’s eyes are wide and earnest. He’s only halfway through his coffee refill.  Any topic beyond the weather was saved past noon. They stopped at some diner for breakfast, no natural lighting and tables too close to each other. Not to mention it was packed from the morning church crowd, all families and far too many kids making noise.

Joe and Pete had settled for the stools while Andy and Patrick were working on the Sunday crossword in the counter perpendicular to their own.

Pete wraps his hands around the warm mug, assessing the thermodynamics or whatever. Wonders if the cup warms him up or if he was cooling the cup down. “What about?”

“Patrick, man,” Joe says in his regular voice, and it’s the only time Pete’s thankful for the senseless shrieks of six year old girls because no way Patrick or Andy heard that while working on 22 down. “What are you doing?”

 _I don’t know either,_ is the honest answer. _What do you think?_ is too hostile and Joe would sniff out something Pete couldn’t even see. He avoids that one too.

“It’s not anything,” is what he says.

“Dude, that is the worst fucking thing you could say,” Joe wails, head in his hands. Pete figures Joe would have said this with anything else he would have said.

“No it’s not,” Pete retaliates “It goes something along the lines of _oh, I murder babies and do your mom while you’re at school.”_

“You might as well have,” Joe grouses. He picks at Pete’s scrambled eggs.

Pete rolls his eyes. “Well, your mom _was_ looking good the last time I saw her.”

Joe wrinkles his nose and grabs Pete’s breakfast plate, shovelling food into his mouth. What an insatiable dumbass. He knocks the fork Joe’s using away from his hand and a waitress gives him a dirty look. Joe ends up using his hands to tear and fold at pancakes.

Pete misses adults sometimes.

On his left, Patrick looks up at him from under floppy bangs and a trucker hat. Pete gives him a cheeky smile, all eyes and teeth. There’s a pink that flashes and a stifled smile that’s bitten under teeth that reminds him of delaying the inevitable.

* * *

The inevitable comes on their last tour day.

It’s nothing big but apparently it’s enough to get them two separate motel rooms for the first time. Joe and Andy are on one floor and Pete and Patrick find their way to the other. Joe faked a sigh of relief and Andy said nothing, only rubbed his eyes, waving them off.

Inevitable comes in the form of Patrick pushing at Pete, letting the back of his knees hit the back of the bed, like some sort of soft focused cliche. Patrick sits over his knees and legs are wrapped around his hips. Pete grabs his ass, thinks, _it’s just like prom night._

“I never went to prom,” Patrick murmurs against his shoulder. It doesn’t occur to Pete he’d said it out loud, starts to wonder how worn his brain to mouth filter is.

The inevitable is the look Patrick gives him, young and yearning. How he dips his head when he looks at Pete like he does — like he knows just how pretty he looks with his eyes low. Pete wouldn’t contest, always thought that, too. But his heart is trying to claw its way out of the muscle and rib inside him. It must show because Patrick’s ceasing his movements, putting out the fire in his eyes, and pulling back.

“Are you okay?” Patrick asks.

Pete doesn’t answer. He balls his hands on the front of Patrick’s shirt, pulling Patrick’s warm form over his own. He looks up, considers feigning tiredness. It ends up with him pulling a face that leaves Patrick frowning down at him. He looks as confused as Pete feels. Pete panics, hands gravitating towards either side of Patrick’s face.

He kisses him, tasting the ghost of the mint he must’ve had on the way to the motel. Patrick’s mouth is smooth, ridges, ridges, then smooth again behind his lip. He kisses like he’s counting his teeth, kisses like he’s trying to compare the  feel of their tongues, because he is.

Patrick moans at this, and he must be doing something right. He kisses back, genuine fervor. Like he feels something that isn’t just spit-slick muscle. Like he feels divine grace or something equally stupid to associate with motel rooms. Patrick is hard, so _so_ hard. Pete feels himself twitch beneath his own low slung jeans, below his boxers. So close to Patrick. Always too close.

“I love you,” Patrick says. It sounds hurried, like he’s about to pull away and take the van and take it right back to Illinois. There must have been an asteroid that’s specifically heading right to this nondescript middle-of-nowhere that Pete didn’t hear about. Tongue meets neck, smooth and distinctly sweat-salty.

“Love you,” Pete murmurs at his skin, shuts his eyes tight. Patrick’s hands are at his shoulders. They pin him down. He swallows at the thought that Patrick’s never said those words before. Pete might be the first he’s ever said that to outside his immediate family. He wishes for the asteroid. Maybe it’s already hit, in the form of Patrick and making Pete feel like he’s being pulled apart, tendon by tendon.

When the last one’s pulled through his fingers and leaves him for all he’s worth, everything freezes suddenly, and Pete doesn’t know why. He’s breathless when time does stop around them, wants it to move. He needs movement. Sensation. Something.

“Do you mean that?”

It’s harsh when it leaves Patrick’s mouth. It takes Pete a second. He immediately regrets the fraction of conviction he’d obviously left out.

“Why are you really doing this?”

Pete scratches the inside of his palm. “Patrick,” he breathes out, panic replacing all the blood in his veins, thumbing over sideburns “Patrick.”

He wants the world to turn in reverse. Or God to strike him dead right there because nothing compares to Patrick’s quivering brow and swollen lips Pete was kissing seconds earlier. He wonders if kissing them again will do them any good. It doesn’t and Patrick only pushes him away. He’s still sitting on top of Pete. The position is too intimate but Pete doubts either one has it in them to move. Patrick’s ass settle on Pete’s knee wrong, making him wince.

“I love you,” Pete begs, and Patrick narrows his eyes. The stare is like the sun too hot, too harsh like noon. It burns his skin, makes him aware of how much of it he actually has. He hates it. He wants to hide under the blankets.

“The guys warned me, you know,” Patrick spits, and Pete’s expression is horrified when he still slides over him, hands in fists caging Pete’s waist “None of them said how stupid it would make me feel.”

Pete whimpers when he realizes Patrick’s still hard. His head and his fucking dick are at war, Patrick staring at him like all the love he ever had was now twisting into something dark and ugly. It feels so close to hate and Pete at least _knows_ that when he sees it. There’s half a second when Pete fears for his life.

“I’ll just make do,” Patrick mutters bitterly “I’ll give you what you want.”

“I don’t want—” Pete finds himself saying these words as if he hasn’t learned his lesson.

Patrick’s eyebrows only furrow further and his face this ugly contortion Pete’s never seen before. Like he’s getting older and Pete is watching him grow up. It isn’t fun. “Oh, as if you’d pass up a warm body.”

Rage bubbles inside him like an unwatched pot. “Fuck you,” Pete whispers and doesn’t understand why Patrick’s rolling his hips down. He’s gotten so much better over time.

There are nails that drag over his neck that are pleasantly rough enough. “Yeah, well.”

“This was a bad idea,” Pete says. He lets himself touch Patrick, for his thumbs to curve into the insides of his elbow. Patrick scowls at this and pins his wrists over his head. His thigh slots between Pete’s legs. His grip is weak.

“This is _your_ fault,” Patrick says like a bad dream “You — you lead me on.”

“Didn’t,” Pete croaks.

Patrick scowls, still obviously disgusted. “I’m in love with you.”

And the thing is, Pete _wants_ to feel the same way. It’s not like he hasn’t tried to. He wants something to click, because that’s how these things worked, right? You _fell_ in love. You fall into this 40 foot drop, land smack right onto summer hot concrete. Pete’s looking for the pothole or the cliff’s edge or the fucking rooftop. He wants to yell _look! I can love you back. Look, I can fall too!_

The inevitable isn’t that kind. He doesn’t get a precipice. He shifts against Patrick instead, wonders if this’ll do. Patrick’s eyes are dark, tell-tale that he’s either enraged or turned on.

“I want to, Patrick, I do,” Pete spits out, something honest for a change. His heart swells. He knows he could he could write something about baby blues or the calluses on his fingertips or some shit. But Pete doesn’t write love songs. At least, none that he can remember.

Patrick rolls down against him, and Pete groans. Patrick’s good, and he taught him to be good like this, how not to fumble and be clumsy against him. Patrick shifts his weight to grind against him.

Pete realizes neither of them are leaving any time soon. No one’s going to pull away.

Patrick’s jaw is clenched, but his hips are rhythmic now. It’s calculated and he’s just showing off at this point. It’s the best he’s ever felt against Pete and he’s letting him know it.

“But you don’t,” Patrick says, mockingly. There’s a bite to it.

“Patrick,” Pete says again, like he’s done over and over. He doesn’t have much else to say and he doesn’t know what to.

_“What?”_

“I love you,” he says, desperately. His mouth feels like it’s stuffed with cotton balls.

“Yeah, yeah.”

He thinks about the packets of lube in his duffel bag. How they’ve never done it, but it was in filthy whispers in truck stop bathrooms, how they promised they were going to try it soon.

Nothing happens. The inevitable doesn’t snap. There isn’t even an asteroid. It dissipates around them, evaporating like the sweat off their backs. Pete’s bones don’t rearrange themselves.

They get each other off through the open flaps of their jeans with Pete’s fingers in Patrick’s mouth and Patrick’s nails deeper than they usually are against the skin of Pete’s back.

It almost feels like nothing changes. It’s enough.

* * *

The drive back to Illinois is too long.

Pete and Joe stumble into the back, and Andy declares that Patrick’s driving.

Pete pretends to be asleep the entire ride, doesn’t move when they drop off Patrick and Joe. There’s indiscernible whispering and Pete hopes his level, steady breathing is convincing enough.

Andy moves to the driver’s seat with a “You can open your eyes now.”

Pete feigns a confused look aimed at the rearview mirror and Andy rolls his eyes. He pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose and shifts the car into gear. The seats rumble and Pete curls against himself.

“You fucked up,” Andy says matter-of-factly.

It’s not like the other times Andy told Pete off.

It’s not _Pete, we can’t afford another fucking amp can you stop jumping off them._ Or _Pete, she had a fucking boyfriend what is wrong with you._ Or _Pete, couldn’t you keep your shit together Arma was going to be something._ There’s no anger to it and Pete wishes there was, because that’s familiar enough to handle.

“It’s not my fault,” Pete mumbles.

It isn’t and Pete keeps choking on his own breaths. No one believes him. No one, because he’s always worn the wolf’s clothing. Because, in their eyes, he’d preyed on Patrick, broke him, used him or _something._ Because that’s what he does.

But he just wasn’t in love. He just didn’t look at Patrick and see anything other than pure gold spun into a boy that must’ve seen his reflection in Pete.

He wonders if anyone looks at him and sees a fucking human being. He’ll take man over myth any day.

Andy doesn’t say much else on their drive back to Wilmette. Pete tries to say anything but all he does is hoist his feet against the driver’s seat, considers kicking the seat, before maneuvering the car to have them curve around a tree. Or to just fucking strangle Andy. He wants to strangle himself. He wants to strangle this entire fucking band.

His nails dig into his palm instead, and he’s close to drawing blood.

He wonders what Patrick said. What the fucking _kid_ said. To his _friends,_ fuck, they were _his_ friends first. This was _his_ band. But now he was back with another fucking band that probably wouldn’t last another month together. And Pete was going to stay here in fucking Wilmette with his fucking parents for the rest of his life.

Pete’s knuckles hit the window before he can stop himself.

* * *

The band lasts.

The band lasts and they’re good enough to land a record deal. It sells well enough and they tour in buses and sell out venues. Pete and Patrick become something of a machine, barely tolerating each other but Jesus fuck, if they don’t make damn good music.

Pete is happy at this fact, it’s hard not to. In their bunks, he’ll slip lyrics etched on notebook paper on top of Patrick’s stomach when he’s asleep and wake up to humming the next morning. He figures out that they’re perfect for each other, but that’s where it ends.

In an interview, one of their first televised ones, he recounts the one time he broke his hand punching a window.

“That is _insane,”_ the interviewer says, saccharine sweet.

Pete looks right at the camera lens, million-dollar grin and sly eyes. “Haven’t you heard? I kind of am.”

The interviewer throws her blond head back and laughs. The rest of the guys chuckle or roll their eyes fondly. Even the cameraman smirks a little bit.

From then on, Pete learns to work with what he has.

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and comments make my day! Feel free to drop by my Tumblr, @[loveinamaltshop](https://loveinamaltshop.tumblr.com/), as well <3 I love talking to (or getting yelled at by) one and all!


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